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By Slade Sohmer on October 21, 2010

We’ll begin with a public-service message to the big dude sitting in the row in front of us at Yankee Stadium for New York’s Game 5 home win last night:

Sir, your sweatshirt, well, I don’t know how to break this to you, but it’s been Bedazzled. It’s hard to look hard when you’ve got rhinestones affixed to your outerwear. Then again, gems attached to the design or not, I’m sure you could kick my arse with one arm. Bedazzle away, in that case. With that out of the way, let’s commence with today’s news and nonsense…

[WSJ = Political Skin Mag] Are you a glutton for punishment? Do you hate yourself enough to read the op-ed equivalent of a mule kick to the sack (or the female sack parallel)? If so, check out the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal today, where you’ll find one of the nation’s most respected institutions bending you over in a fit of hyper-partisan right-wing talking points. The WSJ’s been a GOP press release rubber stamp ever since Rupert Murdoch bought the paper, but today, less than two weeks before the crucial November midterms, it officially became slimier than this guy.

One of the main strategic architects of Our Aughts Failure, Karl Rove, sired a piece so intellectually dishonest you almost need a cold shower to wipe it off. In “Obama’s Incoherent Closing Argument“, Rove first insists that President Obama’s calling voters “stupid” ahead of Election Day, then moves on to this balderdash: “The economy and jobs are the No. 1 issue in every poll. Yet Mr. Obama of late has talked about immigration reform and weighed in (unprompted) on the Ground Zero mosque. He devoted Labor Day to an ineffective Mideast peace initiative…Meanwhile, Republicans have talked about little else than the economy—drawing attention to lackluster job growth, the failed stimulus, out-of-control spending, escalating deficits and the dangers of ObamaCare.”

Got that? Forget for a moment the four lies, damn lies, and misleading gibberish about the president in that paragraph. We’re not here to defend him. We instead take issue with his white-knight view of the Republicans, who “have talked about little else than the economy.” Again, forget for a moment the fact that they’ve been dead wrong on the economy, that the stimulus is indeed working, that out-of-control spending and escalating deficits started under Rove’s administration, etc. But does Rove really not remember that Republicans have talked about so much else? Obama did not weigh in “unprompted” on the “Ground Zero Mosque,” which is a horrifically dumb name for the Park51 Center. It was a right wing-inspired faux-issue that drew him in, and he took the bait.

(By the way, if that link to Rove’s op-ed is behind the subscription pay wall, just copy and paste the headline into Google and then click it when the results come up. That should do the trick.)

[Do As I Say, Not As I Pay] Turns out, Rent Is Too Damn High Party candidate Jimmy McMillan doesn’t pay rent at all. First it was reported that he only pays $800 a month. Next, in an interview on Tuesday, he admitted he doesn’t even pay that, or anything, and hasn’t for at least the last decade. But should it matter? Seriously, who cares? He’s advocating for others on an issue that affects the lives of millions of people, of children. Get out of this guy’s personal bill payments and talk about the issue. And incase you missed it, here’s the HyperVocal follow-up interview with McMillan.

[I’ve Got the JetBlues] Jobquitting Folk Hero Steven Slater had his house robbed the day before he faced arraignment for yanking the emergency hatch on a JetBlue airplane during his Take This Job and Chute It meltdown. The robber? Jonathan Rochelle, his co-habitating boyfriend’s brother.

[Scary Mooslims]NPR fired longtime correspondent Juan Williams for what they perceived as anti-Muslim remarks. Williams, speaking frankly on the O’Reilly Factor, said: “I mean, look, Bill, I’m not a bigot. You know the kind of books I’ve written about the civil rights movement in this country…But when I get on a plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they’re identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.” Did NPR over-react? Is this true religious bigotry or political correctness shunning an honest answer based on human emotion? Sound off in the comments section.

[Guns Don’t Kill People?] We’re told repeatedly by the NRA and Second Amendment die-hards that only people kill people, not guns. They might want to amend that statement after reading this stunning report: “A 10-month investigation by CNBC has found that at least two dozen deaths and more than 100 injuries have been linked to the signature product of an iconic American company. The Remington Model 700-series rifle – with more than 5 million sold – is one of the world’s most popular firearms.”

[Law School Refund] A brilliant PR move, but a third-year Boston College Law School will probably not achieve his desired result. The anonymous student proposed a novel idea to the school: Keep the degree…and give me back my tuition!” Let us know how it works out.

[Modern Day “Cocktail”] And finally, here’s an insane video of a street vendor at the Chatuchak Market in Bangkok become one with the awesome pouring of iced tea. You’ll never watch Brian Brown and Tom Cruise’s acrobatic decanting in Cocktail the same way again:

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